than all other causes united.  The people and the government at last becoming enlightened by means of the Scripture, spurned it from the island with disgust and horror, the land instantly after its disappearance becoming a fair field, in which arts, sciences, and all the amiable virtues flourished, instead of being a pestilent marsh where swine-like ignorance wallowed, and artful hypocrites, like so many wills-o’-the-wisp, played antic gambols about, around and above debased humanity.

But Popery still wished to play her old part, to regain her lost dominion, to reconvert the smiling land into the pestilential morass, where she could play again her old antics.  From the period of the Reformation in England up to the present time, she has kept her emissaries here—individuals contemptible in intellect, it is true, but cat-like and gliding, who, at her bidding, have endeavoured, as much as in their power has lain, to damp and stifle every genial, honest, loyal and independent thought, and to reduce minds to such a state of dotage as would enable their old Popish mother to do what she pleased with them.

And in every country, however enlightened, there are always minds inclined to grovelling superstition—minds fond of eating dust and swallowing clay—minds never at rest, save when prostrate before some fellow in a surplice; and these Popish emissaries found always some weak enough to bow down before them, astounded by their dreadful denunciations of eternal woe and damnation to any who should refuse to believe their Romania; but they

played a poor game—the law protected the servants of Scripture, and the priest with his beads seldom ventured to approach any but the remnant of those of the eikonolatry—representatives of worm-eaten houses, their debased dependants and a few poor crazy creatures among the middle classes—he played a poor game, and the labour was about to prove almost entirely in vain, when the English Legislature, in compassion or contempt, or, yet more probably, influenced by that spirit of toleration and kindness which is so mixed up with Protestantism, removed almost entirely the disabilities under which Popery laboured, and enabled it to raise its head and to speak out almost without fear.

And it did raise its head, and, though it spoke with some little fear at first, soon discarded every relic of it; went about the land uttering its damnation cry, gathering around it—and for doing so many thanks to it—the favourers of priestcraft who lurked within the walls of the Church of England; frightening with the loudness of its voice the weak, the timid and the ailing; perpetrating, whenever it had an opportunity, that species of crime to which it has ever been most partial—deathbed robbery; for as it is cruel, so is it dastardly.  Yes, it went on enlisting, plundering and uttering its terrible threats till—till it became, as it always does when left to itself, a fool, a very fool.  Its plunderings might have been overlooked, and so might its insolence, had it been common insolence, but it—, and then the roar of indignation which arose from outraged England against the viper, the frozen viper which it had permitted to warm itself upon its bosom.

But thanks, Popery, you have done all that the friends of enlightenment and religious liberty could wish; but if ever there were a set of foolish ones to be found under Heaven, surely it is the priestly rabble who came over from Rome to direct the grand movement, so long in its getting up.

But now again the damnation cry is withdrawn, there is a subdued meekness in your demeanour, you are now once more harmless as a lamb.  Well, we shall see how the trick—“the old trick”—will serve you.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.  (1872.)

Lavengro made its first appearance more than one and twenty years ago.  It was treated in anything but a courteous manner.  Indeed, abuse ran riot, and many said that the book was killed.  If by killed was meant knocked down and stunned, which is the Irish acceptation of the word—there is a great deal about Ireland in the book—they were right enough.  It was not dead, however, oh dear no! as is tolerably well shown by the present edition, which has been long called for.

The chief assailants of the book were the friends of Popery in England.  They were enraged because the author stood up for the religion of his fathers, his country, and the Bible, against the mythology of a foreign priest.  As for the Pope—but the Pope has of late had his misfortunes, so no harsh language.  To another subject!  From the Pope to the Gypsies!  From the Roman Pontiff to the Romany Chals!

A very remarkable set of people are the Gypsies; frequent mention is made of them in Lavengro, and from their peculiar language the word “Lavengro” is taken.  They first attracted notice in Germany, where they appeared in immense numbers in the early part of the fifteenth century, a period fraught with extraordinary events: the coming of the Black Death; the fortunes and misfortunes of the Emperor Sigismund; the quarrels of the Three Popes—the idea of three Popes at one time!—the burning alive of John Huss; the advance of the Crescent, and the battle of Agincourt.  They were of dark complexion, some of them of nearly negro blackness, and spoke a language of their own, though many could converse in German and

other tongues.  They called themselves Zingary and Romany Chals, and the account they gave of themselves was that they were from Lower Egypt, and were doing penance, by a seven years’ wandering, for the sin of their forefathers, who of old had refused hospitality to the Virgin and Child.  They did not speak truth, however; the name they bore, Zingary, and which, slightly modified, is still borne by their descendants in various countries, shows that they were not from Egypt, but from a much more distant land, Hindostan; for Zingaro is Sanscrit, and signifies a man of mixed race, a mongrel; whilst their conduct was evidently not that of people engaged in expiatory pilgrimage; for the women told the kosko bokht, the good luck, the buena ventura; kaured, that is, filched money and valuables from shop-boards and counters by a curious motion of the hands, and poisoned pigs and hogs by means of a certain drug, and then begged, and generally obtained, the carcases, which cut up served their families for food; the children begged and stole; whilst the men, who it is true professed horse-clipping, farriery and fiddling, not unfrequently knocked down travellers and plundered them.  The hand of justice of course soon fell heavily upon them; men of Egypt, as they were called, were seized, hung, or maimed; women scourged or branded; children whipped; but no severity appeared to have any effect upon the Zingary; wherever they went (and they soon found their way to almost every country in Europe), they adhered to their evil practices.  Before the expiration of the fifteenth century bands of them appeared in England with their horses, donkeys and tilted carts.  How did they contrive to cross the sea with their carts and other property?  By means very easy to people with money in their pockets, which the Gypsies always have, by paying for their passage; just as the Hungarian tribe did, who a few years ago came to England with their horses and vehicles, and who, whilst encamping with their English brethren in the loveliest of all forests, Epping Wesh, exclaimed “Sore si mensar si men”. [0a]

The meaning of Zingary, one of the names by which